In 2021, everyone hospitalised at the Sant’Orsola will receive the gift of a book. A companion to help them get through difficult days and discover something new. This is the Fondazione Sant’Orsola project for 2021. An idea that stemmed from the voluntary work of the non-profit organisation and was developed together with Coop Alleanza 3.0 consultant Romano Montroni, chair of the scientific committee of the Centro per il Libro e la Lettura.

The initiative was made possible thanks to the generosity of three sponsors – BPER Banca, the Unipol Group and UniSalute – and the kindness of the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group, who agreed to print 24,000 volumes. Three books have been published: Jane Austen, Emma; Jack London, Martin Eden; Cesare Pavese, La casa in collina. Three classics, three books to read and re-read.

The project was also supported by the Centro per il libro e la lettura, an autonomous body of the Italian Ministry for Culture, and will be endorsed by author Gianrico Carofiglio, who has recognised the importance of the initiative, the first of its kind in Italy.

As soon as the health emergency has ended and the wards are re-opened, the volunteers of the Fondazione Sant’Orsola will present the books to the patients. Until then, distribution will be organised with the assistance of the clinic’s nursing staff, who will ask incoming patients to choose one of the three books when they are assigned a bed. The Fondazione Sant’Orsola website will host a virtual community of readers, where views on the three books and other reading material can be shared.

“Books are essential to a person’s development,” explains the president of Fondazione Sant’Orsola, Giacomo Faldella, “but also to their well-being: some patients bring a book with them, and they see it as a life jacket before making a crossing on a stormy sea; or, more simply perhaps, as a friend to keep them company. However, many patients aren’t in the habit of reading, or for some reason were unable to bring a book with them.”

“In Britain, bibliotherapy has long been a recognised activity,” says Romano Montroni. “The National Health Service has a department set up for the specific purpose of using reading to foster well-being. The relationship between a person’s health and art is also deeply rooted in our own culture; in the early Italian hospitals, like Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, the sick and pilgrims were accommodated and treated in rooms that over the centuries had been decorated by the city’s great painters and sculptors, so the patients were literally “immersed” in beauty. In other words, well-being was regarded in a broad sense, not simply in medical-physical terms.”

“The first thing that someone experiencing a period of difficulty or illness should perhaps try and do is look after themselves,” adds Enrico Selva Coddè, CEO of Einaudi and Mondadori Libri Trade. “It sounds easy, but sometimes it’s impossible. So a simple gesture can help, which is to open a book and absorb yourself in the voice speaking from its pages. A voice dedicated to us, as an indissoluble combination of flesh and imagination. Three classics, because they are like old friends we enjoy seeing again, classics that, as Italo Calvino said, are books people usually say they are ‘re-reading’, not that they are ‘reading’.” Whether it is the wit and irony of Jane Austen, the courage and tenacity of Jack London, the realism and melancholy of Cesare Pavese, these books will certainly help their readers feel less alone.”

Exactly one year ago, Fondazione Sant’Orsola brought together around twenty volunteers – former booksellers, retired teachers, people who love reading – to set up the Libri in corsia project. In just a few weeks, the 1,745 books in the wards had been mapped to create an online catalogue patients could use to request a book located in another ward; the volunteers would then fetch it for them. The pandemic meant that, for reasons of safety, books could no longer be swapped in the hospital. But the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers did not give up: they decided that if books could not be borrowed, they could always be offered as a gift.

This led to the idea being launched today, thanks to the generosity of the sponsors and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group. An idea that the Fondazione Sant’Orsola volunteers have decided to take a step further with a new project Provo a dirlo con un libro. The Sant’Orsola website today has a catalogue of more than 250 books reviewed by the volunteers. Patients can ask for one of the books, or for one of the titles that have not yet been reviewed, and the volunteers will get it to them within 24 hours. Meanwhile, everyone can post comments and reviews on the catalogue, to build up the online community of readers.
22 June 2021

The Mondadori Group has redesigned its Trade Books Area under the leadership of the chief executive of Mondadori Libri S.p.A. Enrico Selva Coddè, with the aim of pursuing growth and development opportunities for its publishing houses.

“We have defined a new organisational model that will enable us to respond more effectively to the central challenges in trade publishing, a sector in increasingly rapid evolution, also at the international level,” declared Enrico Selva Coddè. “A necessary change to look to the future of the country’s leading cultural industry with the innovative approach that has always characterised our publishing houses,” Selva Coddè concluded.

Consequently, two new crossover departments have been created that will report directly to Enrico Selva Coddè.

The first, the department of General Operations, will be headed up by Filippo Guglielmone, with the aim of orienting the business at the highest possible level of cost efficiency and service possible; operations and sales will be integrated in a single process to drive value generation and make it possible to optimise time-to-market, increase customer satisfaction and facilitate the growth of the publishing houses.

The second, the department for Strategic Marketing, Rights and Acquisitions, to be led by Lorenzo Garavaldi, aims to reinforce the company’s role in the publishing market through analysis and the definition of market strategy, the coordination of acquisition activities and the identification of development priorities.

Reporting to Enrico Selva Coddè, the publishing houses will also absorb product marketing activities giving them all control over communication, in line with a scenario in which the enhancement of authors’ work is part of a single publishing effort that goes from the title to readers’ comments.

The publishing houses are led by Francesco Anzelmo, General Manager of Mondadori; Ernesto Franco, General Manager and Editorial Director of Einaudi; Massimo Turchetta, General Manager of Rizzoli Trade and Publishing & Rights Development; Stefano Peccatori, General Manager of Sperling & Kupfer, Piemme and Mondadori Electa, and Lorenzo Garavaldi, General Manager of BU Ragazzi.

Even today 120 million children around the world do not receive a basic education, and more than half of them are girls. Without the chance to study it is impossible to imagine a future, without adequate quality education there are no opportunities to build a better and more secure life.

The right to an education is even more at risk in countries like Ethiopia, where almost 30 million people live below the poverty line and 30.4% of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition. Too many boys and girls (70%) are obliged to leave education after primary school in order to help their families by working in the fields and because of a lack of the right kind of support.

This is why, for Christmas, ActionAid together with Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Piemme, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Fabbri Editori have come together to face an important challenge: to guarantee the right to education for 1,800 boys and girls in the Raya Azebo of Ethiopia, one of the places in the world where the provision of primary education is most urgent, and an area that is frequently without access to drinking water and adequate sanitation.

“Going to school in Ethiopia and being able to complete studies with quality education is a right that is denied to too many children especially girls. To able to work alongside a partner like Mondadori is to receive the kind of fundamental support that will make it possible to realise the dreams of 1,800 children who have neither classrooms, nor books or materials. Thanks to the contribution of the publishing houses of the Group we will be able to build two new schools, provide electricity, drinking water and sanitation, support teacher training and build awareness in the local community of the importance of educating girls, in one of the poorest regions of the country,” declared Marco De Ponte, Secretary General of ActionAid.

The importance of an education worthy of the name – that is equal, inclusive and accessible to everyone – is an absolute priority for the Mondadori Group: indeed, it is part of a profound sense among the people who work in the company that it is a natural and fundamental element of our traditions and history as a company” declared Enrico Selva Coddè, Chief Executive of the Trade Area of Mondadori Books. “This initiative allows our publishing houses to go further and engage in a concrete and inclusive solidarity project that will benefit one of the areas of the world in which the need is most urgent. Being able to work alongside a partner like ActionAid is a guarantee for us of the seriousness of our joint commitment” concluded Enrico Selva Coddè.

The project

Most of the schools in the Raya Azebo district have wooden frames and mud walls. And due to the lack of separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, it is impossible for girls to go to school during their menstrual cycle. Such frequent absence from lessons consequently leads to poor results and even abandoning school altogether.

With the “Insieme per l’istruzione” (Together for Education) project, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group will create a safe school environment for 1,800 children, half of them girls, in the primary schools of the Barie Woyane and Hawulti communities. During 2020 two school buildings, each with four classrooms, a library and separate toilet facilities for girls, will be completed. Also teaching materials and classroom furniture will be provided, along with support for girls and initiatives to improve school governance, with the increased involvement of the local communities.

The progress of the project in Ethiopia can be followed on the web site: insiemeperlistruzione.it.

With this initiative, ActionAid and the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group are committed to the shared support of the fourth of the Sustainable Objectives set by the United Nations for 2030.

ActionAid for schools

Over the last year we have ensured and improved access to free, safe and quality education for boys and girls in around 5,000 schools in 25 countries. We have also involved over 400,000 parents, teachers and students in activities aimed at preventing and combatting the early abandonment of school.

The Mondadori Group for education

We are a publishing house with over 100 years of history. Thanks to our strong links with authors and readers we are acutely aware of our responsibilities, also to civil society. There is no doubt that the right to quality education and information is an essential prerequisite for the development and growth of a country. Consequently, the active promotion, in Italy and around the world, of a culture that is accessible to all, is a central part of our mission and one of the principles of the Group’s sustainability policy.

What ActionAid does

ActionAid is an independent international organisation operating in Italy and in 44 other countries. It collaborates with more than 10,000 partners, alliances, NGOs and social movements to combat poverty and social injustice. For over 40 years ActionAid has been working alongside the poorest and most marginalised people and communities, supporting them in the knowledge that it is only through collective efforts in support of solidarity and justice that real social change can be generated. A fair and equal world for all: this is the vision that inspires ActionAid and provides its strength. In order to transform this vision of the world into concrete reality, ActionAid has adopted a specific mission for the next 10 years: to work for the promotion and adoption of democratic participation and to involve people and communities in the protection of their rights, and to collaborate, at a local, national and international level, for the realisation of change and the spread of social equality, improving the quality of democracy and consequently supporting those who live in situations of poverty and marginalisation.

From this month all new eBooks from the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group– Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer e Mondadori Electa – will be published in the new ePub3 format.

The Mondadori Group is the first Italian publisher to adopt the most recent international standard for all new digital publications, confirming its commitment to the development of digital publishing and the innovations demanded by the market.

The updating project was completed after a detailed analysis of the new format aimed at further improving the reading experience to make it more inclusive. In fact, the technical specifications of ePub3 make it possible to produce eBook with improved accessibility and graphics.

The new format facilitates the publication of digital text with a higher level of accessibility thanks to more precise metadata, content marking and image description, giving the visually impaired a much wider range of books that can be used with adaptive technologies, such as special keyboards and voice-overs.

This is a continuation of the Mondadori Group’s commitment to extend access to reading for people with sight impairments, to which the company has always paid special attention, also through collaboration with institutions such as the Fondazione LIA and the Fondazione Paideia on ambitious inclusion projects, such as the catalogue of accessible Italian books (https://catalogo.fondazionelia.org) and the digital books in AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication ) project ILIBRIPERTUTTI (https://www.ilibripertutti.it).

Entirely retro-compatible with all reading devices and apps, the ePub3 format will also make it possible to more easily produce books with complex graphics and augmented features, such as multi-media, interactivity and animations.

The Mondadori Group is the market leader in trade books with a total market share of 25.7%. Since 2010 Group has published the majority of its editorial products also as eBooks, with a catalogue of around 20,000 titles.

This year again we will attend the Frankfurt Book Fair, at its 71st edition from 16 to 20 October with our publishing houses and imprints.

It is the most prestigious European event in the field of book publishing.

Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Sperling&Kupfer, Mondadori Electa and Piemme will be in Hall 5.0, stand C56.

Camilla Boneschi, Francesco Bozzi, Susanna Ciucci, Valerio Fidenzi, Giulia Masci Ametta, Linda Poncetta, Luca Scolari and Anna Spinelli: these are the young talents selected by the publishing houses of the Mondadori Group as part of the Millennial Editors project.

Launched in February, the project offered a unique opportunity to 8 recent graduates  under-30 in order to gain work experience in the publishing world, after being chosen on the basis of an outstanding curriculum and a deep passion for books and reading.

All of the aspiring editor were subjected to a rigorous recruitment process and selected from over 4,200 applications, received by the Mondadori Group during the month the project was launched with an announcement on the Monster Italia web site.

Following an initial selection phase based on qualifications and experience, 81 candidates were given the possibility to participate in an Edithon: a full day at the Palazzo Mondadori, in which the candidates met the leading figures from each of the Group’s publishing houses and could demonstrate their skills through individual and group tests.

8 Millennial Editors stood out among them and, starting from this month, will start a two-year apprenticeship at Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, BUR, Sperling & Kupfer, Mondadori Education and Rizzoli Education.

This will give them the chance to make their dream come true and to learn how to become an editor, by interacting and cooperating with all of the colleagues and other protagonists in the book production chain, starting from the authors.

The #MillennialEditors project has also offered an opportunity to discuss and share with young people on social media some of the fundamental aspects of what it means to be a professional editor: videos, photos, “stories” and special content that have recorded a total of over 280,000 views on the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles of the Mondadori Group.

The publishing houses of the Mondadori Group are launching the Millennial Editor project for talented under 30s who dream of becoming  book editors.
An innovative and unprecedented programme, aimed at graduates in the humanities and economics, through which the Mondadori Group offers millennials with a consuming passion for books and reading a unique opportunity to enter the publishing world.

Einaudi, Electa, Mondadori, Piemme, Rizzoli, Sperling & Kupfer, Mondadori Education and Rizzoli Education, through a selection process in various stages, will identify eight young talents who will be guaranteed a period of two years of work and training as an editor with an apprenticeship contract.

The candidates selected will pursue a path during which they will be required to measure themselves against the activities of the various publishing areas and participate in training sessions with highly experienced professionals of the Group’s various publishing houses.
An all-round opportunity to learn the profession of editor, not only the specific aspects of publishing, but also the institutional, technical and managerial sides, interacting and collaborating with all of the protagonists involved in the book chain, starting from authors and senior editors. Each participant will develop the key skills necessary to face the challenges of a continuously evolving market.

The Millennial Editor project is developed in collaboration with Monster Italia, a highly specialised company in personnel research, and the technical partner in the recruitment phase.
You can submit your application from today, to this link.
After an initial selection based on qualifications and experience, in the second half of March suitable candidates will take part in an Edithon, a one-day event at Palazzo Mondadori during which they will meet the leading figures involved in the  project and, after being divided into work groups, will have the opportunity to put themselves to the test.
By the end of April, the eight young talents selected will be allocated, according to their characteristics and inclinations, to one of the areas, i.e. non-fiction, miscellaneous, fiction or educational of the publishing houses involved: Einaudi, Electa, Mondadori, Piemme, Rizzoli, Sperling & Kupfer, Mondadori Education and Rizzoli Education.

Our publishing houses are at the 69th Frankfurt Book Fair , scheduled from 11 to 15 October.

This is the most important European event and among the most prestigious in the world.

Mondadori, Rizzoli, Einaudi, Sperling & Kupfer and Piemme are in Hall 5.0, Stand C56.

With 133 votes from the popular jury, Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s novel L’ Arminuta (Einaudi) wins the 55th edition of the Campiello Prize.

As on other occasions, the readers’ opinion has reversed the shortlist positions decreed by the technical jury, chaired this year by Ottavia Piccolo, of the prize for fiction promoted by Confindustria Veneto.

The novel by Donatella Di Pietrantonio has won over the works of Stefano Massini (Qualcosa sui Lehman, Mondadori, 99 votes), Mauro Covacich (La città interiore, La Nave di Teseo, 25 votes), Alessandra Sarchi (La notte ha la mia voce, Einaudi, 13 votes) and Laura Pugno (La ragazza selvaggia, Marsilio, 12 votes).

On Thursday 6 July, in the captivating space of the Ninfeo of the Villa Giulia in Rome, Paolo Cognetti won the 71^st Premio Strega with his nove Le otto montagne (The Eight Mountains). The author, who also won the 4^th edition of the Premio Strega Giovani 2017, an award for young writers, clearly moved and delighted by this prestigious recognition, dedicated the prize to the mountains, “because it’s an area that has been abandoned, forgotten and destroyed, often by the city, and I decided that I wanted to write about that. I have tried to be a sort of spokesman, a go-between, for the mountains, the plain and the city, that all seem very far away. I also try to write these stories for people who don’t know the mountains and live too far away from them, trying, in some way, to save the world I live in.”  “Being here,” he added, “is like a dream come true, not so much a dream of winning a prize, as being a writer and being able to live on my work.”

From the beginning, Le otto montagne has been a literary phenomenon, something that was made clear by the competition among the publishers who wanted to publish it around the world. In fact, the novel has already been translated into more than 30 languages.

Le otto montagne tells the story of Pietro, a solitary and somewhat argumentative city boy, and his relationship with his parents, his friend Bruno and, above all, with the mountains. From the stage of the Strega prize the author reminded the audience that nature is a word used by people who live in cities.”

In their lean, hard and wild beauty, the mountains leave a permanent mark on the soul, an imprint on those who are born there and those who love them. It becomes a category of the spirit, and even when one leaves, in search of a more comfortable and easier place, you can never really break away. All it takes is a sound, a smell, and you are sucked straight back in. This is what happens to the characters in the novel. They just can’t manage without, the come and go, but never really leave.

It is a story of “fathers and sons, of abandoning civilisations, of the freedom of living wild. I have always kept with me the memory of the great happiness I experienced as a boy in the woods. Whatever destiny is, it lives in the mountains we have above our heads.” (Paolo Cognetti).